Dubai will stockpile 90 days' worth of water for emergency use in new underground storage facilities.
Utility company Dewa said it has begun the testing of its Aquifer Storage and Recovery project at a newly constructed plant.
Once fully completed in 2025, the underground facilities will hold up to 6,000 million gallons of water.
“This makes it the largest ASR of its kind in the world to store potable water and retrieve it in case of an emergency,” Dewa said on Saturday.
“This will secure the Emirate with an additional source of potable water strategic reserve of 50MIGD for 90 days in emergencies, while ensuring the quality of the stored water.”
Saeed Al Tayer, managing director of Dewa, added that the project “helps to ensure meeting the rapidly growing demand for water across different areas in Dubai for all citizens, residents and visitors".
Two further reservoirs in the Dubai desert, in Nakhali and Lusaily, are being worked on. There are federal plans for more desalination plants in Abu Dhabi and Umm Al Quwain.
Dewa's ASR project increases the sustainable production of water in Dubai.
It uses clean solar power to desalinate seawater using the latest reverse osmosis (RO) technologies. Excess water is stored in aquifers and pumped back into the water network when needed. The cost of this innovative integrated model is less than the cost of traditional reservoirs.
More than 90 per cent of the UAE's drinking water comes from desalinated and treated seawater, as fresh groundwater is not abundant enough to support the population.
Desalination plants and how they work: in pictures
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At a water desalination plant on the sea near the northern Israeli town of Hadera, water pumped in from the Mediterranean is pushed through rows of multi-layered plastic membranes, and through a process called reverse osmosis, emerges after 90 minutes as tasty drinking water. Quique Kierszenbaum / Tribune News Service via Getty Images -
A worker walks between giant transfer pipes at Britain's desalination plant, the Thames Gateway Water Treatment Works, in Beckton, England. Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images -
This picture taken on December 11, 2019 shows a view of Jubail Desalination Plant at the Jubail Industrial City, about 95 kilometres north of Dammam in Saudi Arabia's eastern province overlooking the Gulf. AFP -
Concept art for the Solar Dome being planned for Saudi Arabia's new city at Neom. Solar Water PLC -
A view of the AES Huntington Beach Power Station and the proposed site of the Poseidon Desalination Plant in Huntington Beach, California in February, 2021. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images -
The Carlsbad Desalination plant stands under construction in this aerial photograph taken over Carlsbad, California on August 2015. Patrick T Fallon / Bloomberg via Getty Images -
Water desalination plant in Antofagasta, Chile. Oliver Llaneza Hesse / Getty Images -
A view of the European Union and Unicef funded huge seawater desalination plant opening in Deir al Balah, Gaza on January 19, 2017. Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images -
Saltwater flows into the pre-treatment hall at the Kurnell desalination plant, in Sydney, Australia. Bloomberg via Getty Images
